State of distributed solar in the GCC region
Several of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries have begun to see rooftop solar installations reach high volumes in both the residential and commercial segments – a sign of the growing popularity of distributed solar in the Middle East. The past year has seen a host of contracts signed with developers across the region, including some impressive commercial PV projects.
Solar’s flexibility can be agriculture’s gain
Both solar and the farming industry are beginning to see potential in the combined use of land for food production and energy generation. And as innovators begin to experiment with different forms, it’s becoming clear that in most cases it is solar that will have to bend to the needs of agriculture, and not the other way around, to ensure a positive outcome.
The SolarWinds of change
Solar inverters have gotten smarter. The recent hacking of U.S. government agencies via software provided by SolarWinds has triggered discussion about whether inverters, with all their added functionality, could pose a serious cybersecurity threat to solar PV projects. David Wagman, senior editor at pv magazine USA, looks at the efforts that are underway to stay one step ahead of potential hackers.
Time to standardize
Not all quality control plans, processes and agreements are created equal, writes Frédéric Dross, the VP of strategic development for Senergy Technical Services (STS). Indeed, developers can find themselves saddled with agreements that allow unacceptably low levels of quality, unless they have followed standards.
Sponsored: A five-step quality gatekeeper
Inverter manufacturer Growatt just celebrated its 10th anniversary and gifted itself a brand new 20 GW production facility. pv magazine recently caught up with Growatt Marketing Director Lisa Zhang to learn how the company’s five-step quality assurance program found its way into the new production line.
Making sense of new sizes
The era of large modules has arrived, but it shouldn’t be assumed that this will immediately make projects more profitable, argues Steven Xuereb of engineering service provider PI Berlin, as he compares different module size options for a current development project.
In Conversation: The flagship of the energy transition
Ankica Kovač is an assistant professor at the University of Zagreb and the head of the Power Engineering Laboratory. She is also a member of the Council of the President of the Republic of Croatia for Energy Transition, along with numerous energy transition bodies and working groups.
Electromobility meets battery storage
Now in its 10th year, pv magazine Deutschland has once again conducted its market overview of residential battery storage products. As the leading global distributed storage market, technology and application trends from Germany, including the shift to EV-charging integration, are enlightening for market participants throughout the world. Interestingly, price declines remain slow.
Mexico’s big green chill
Although Mexico is a country bathed in sunshine, the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his Morena Party have unequivocally pivoted from the pro-renewables, private investment-friendly policies of their predecessors in the space of just two and a half years. As a result, renewable energy investment has frozen, particularly for projects that involve private capital, argues attorney and project developer Patrick C. Jordan.
Powerful equation to expand C&I
Big rooftop PV systems on factories, warehouses and public buildings need not be limited by ownership issues nor local grid capacity, claims Australian innovator EleXsys Energy. The company is maxing out an Ikea in Adelaide, Australia, with solar and storage. And it claims its smart technology can allow the same to be done elsewhere.
